Dreiser Theodore. Jennie Gerhardt. Audio Book. Chapters 21 - 43

Narrated by Richard Kilmer. — Running time 5:06:33.Dreiser's second novel, Jennie Gerhardt (1911), is often considered his most popular, having sold more than five thousand copies in its first six months. Not only does the author show his characters through their own dialogue (rather than relying on description and narration), he also injects a bit of realistic humor in the baby talk conversations between a toddler and her grandfather. Moreover, he presents a heroine whose sexual liaisons stem not from a longing for possessions but from a sense of family responsibility.Because Jennie’s father is an unemployed glassblower with six children, Jennie helps out by doing the laundry of George Brander, a senator who resides at a fashionable hotel. Having taken a fancy to Jennie, Brander tells her that if ever she or her family are in need, he will help. Thus, when Jennie’s brother gets into trouble with the law, Brander gives Jennie the ten dollars bail that her parents cannot afford. In her relief and gratitude, Jennie yields herself to him completely.Dreiser's work centers around how money makes people do things that they might not want to do. The fact that Jennie is placed into positions where money is the critical factor is what convinces her to do what she otherwise would not wish to do. It might be deliberate on Dreiser's part to make the assumption that human freedom is limited by money and poverty. When Jennie's father is in dire economic straits, Jennie has to utilize her charms as a woman and be with men for the economic comfort it provides to her family. When Jennie becomes pregnant from the Senator, she must further take her daughter into account for her actions. In the end, poverty and its avoidance drives Jennie to act and her freedom is geared by material ends. While Jennie does have autonomy, it is limited by her condition as a woman and one who is chained to financial constraints that compel her to have to act in a manner that recognizes socioeconomic reality as a defining end to her state of being in the world.